Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

We have Red Hat Enterprise Linux for our staging and development environments. We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for our production servers. It is the only Linux operating system that we are using in our company. I do not think we will change it. We will stay with it.

We started with CentOS, so it is quite similar. We have various features, and it is stable. The updates and upgrades are stable. This is the most important thing for my company. We are a gambling company. Reliability and performance are the most important for us. We like to press the update button and have an updated operating system after one, two, three, or five minutes. The most important thing about Red Hat Enterprise Linux is that it is a stable operating system.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for containerization projects. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Docker daemons have been running for years without any problems. It is very stable. We are happy with it.

Every time we did an update or upgrade for the operating system or some dependencies, it worked well. It was very fast and stable. We are not afraid to press the button. We are happy with it.

The portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux keeps our organization agile. We are running some Docker applications. They are not our production applications. We are running some containers. It is very quite easy.

We use Red Hat Insights, and we are happy with Red Hat Insights in urgent situations due to security issues, noncompliant settings, or unpatched systems.

Red Hat Insights provides us with vulnerability alerts and targeted guidance. We have not had any problems.

It is a very stable operating system. We are not afraid to upgrade it.

If I want GUI, its GUI is better than other open-source operating systems. I prefer it for package management for sure. I am happy with it.

At the moment, I am happy with it. I cannot think of any areas for improvement. We have everything. The biggest challenge that we had was the migration from CentOS to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but after some tests, it was easy.

We have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for almost two years.

It is stable.

It is scalable. We plan to increase its usage.

We are partners of Red Hat. We have support, so we are good. 

Positive

We were using CentOS. The architect in my company chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux because we were already partners with Red Hat.

We are mostly on-prem. We are trying to migrate our applications to the cloud. We are using Azure Cloud.

The main data center that we have is in Ireland, but we are serving a lot of countries. We have small data centers for some countries. We have 2,000 VMs in Ireland, and we also have VMs in other countries. We have almost five data centers. We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux in all of them.

Migration from CentOS to Red Hat Enterprise Linux was a big challenge, but Red Hat had software to migrate and convert all CentOS VMs to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It was an adventure in the beginning, but after some tests, it was easy. We migrated and converted almost 2,000 VMs in two to three months, and we had only ten cases where the migration failed, but it was our fault. We were happy.

For migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we created a template and made the changes that we wanted. We ran some Ansible Playbooks, and we created the VMs.

We used a consultant from Red Hat the first time.

We did not evaluate other solutions.

To a colleague who is looking at open-source, cloud-based operating systems for Linux instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would advise going for Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of support. There would be someone who already knows about your issue and can help you in a couple of hours. There is no need to spend time fixing the issue by yourself. Imagine running Ubuntu and having a production issue. You need someone to guide you.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has not enabled us to centralize development. Our company is based on the .NET language. Our developers do not care about our infrastructure. They develop their applications, and we deploy them in OpenShift. We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for other services, such as MongoDB, Postgres, and our logging infrastructure. We use it for Elasticsearch, Graylog, and Docker services. Our applications do not run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems. They are running on CoreOS for OpenShift.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten. It is stable. We are not afraid to upgrade it. We are happy to use it. This operating system is for us. 

We are doing image building. Our team focuses on the image of the platform and presenting it in a secure way for everybody to consume.

My organization had already been using it before I started, so I am not sure what benefits they got from Red Hat Enterprise Linux. They were already a Red Hat shop when I started.

We do not utilize Red Hat Insights as much as we would like, but we know that it is there. It provides the data, and we can act on that data, but we do not use Red Hat Insights the way we should. However, it does tell us when things are critical and need to be patched. If something is on there and it is critical, we can at least see that it is patched. The alerts and targeted guidance from Red Hat Insights have not affected our uptime so far.

It is open source. Most of the features are already there for you. They make solutions for challenges that we do not even think about sometimes, but we may consume them later.

I have not put in many feature requests. They have mainly been around small things such as monitoring with Ceph. I cannot remember the name, but monitoring was needed for a specific function. It was a pretty important function, but there was no monitoring set up. It took some extra effort. That was the only feature I asked for. I asked them if they could set up a monitor to make sure that the system was healthy or working correctly.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for about five years. 

Its stability is fine. I have not seen too many issues with stability.

Its scalability is great. We can scale up or down.

I do not have any issues with the customer service or tech support. It is good. I would rate them a ten out of ten because they can usually resolve anything.

Positive

The deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is pretty simple. There are not so many issues.

We are using it on the cloud and on-prem. We are trying to get to Azure. We are not using it in a hybrid cloud environment. I know we are setting up OpenShift in Azure and on-prem.

We have been using TerraForm to create images and Ansible to make sure everything is fine. We have some things on Azure, but we are trying to make it easier for people to consume Azure. We are trying to get that automation together so that it is a lot easier if anybody wants to spin anything up in Azure. They have a container to use that is secure. All of our business tools are on it.

We just use Red Hat. We do not use any integrator or consultant.

Our team does not use a lot of containerization, but we probably will be doing that soon with VMware changes. We are trying to get more of the monolithic stuff down to containerized workloads. We will hopefully see some return on investment after we get our VMware stuff out and get more things containerized. We are working with the OpenShift team, and we will be able to see some ROI.

That has been mostly handled by Red Hat. As we are a Red Hat shop, we have a lot of people around that already.

We do not use the security features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. There are so many scanners out there. We do not use what is on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but we do set it up. They are at least available to consume. We do not use them because we have so many security compliance tools. As a bank, we have to use those for auditing and other things like that.

To a colleague who is looking at open-source, cloud-based operating systems for Linux instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would say to get something that is close to Red Hat. Red Hat is killing a lot of the downstream stuff. All my Linux is Rocky Linux because it is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I would suggest getting something that is close to Red Hat Enterprise Linux so that if they or their company does not want to go for Red Hat, they would still have the same tooling and the same infrastructure.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten. I have not seen a lot of issues with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I am overall satisfied with it.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for running SQL servers, Oracle databases, Java applications, Apache, and data store types of things.

We use it for all sorts of functions. We have different levels. I am primarily an SE building and configuring the servers. The application-related work is for everyone else.

In terms of our environment, we might have some cloud. We have different engineering teams working on different parts of the technologies. My team and I do not touch that, so we have a basic cloud-based and non-cloud-based setup.

We are primarily able to standardize on the platform. By keeping everything standard, you know what might break or should not break. That is the true benefit. It seems to help keep a better level of standard across all groups, business standards, and application types.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux enables us to centralize development. That goes with platform uniformity. The development team has a common toolset and expectations from the toolset and what they are working with. It just makes things easier for each developer.

The portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux is very good for keeping our organization agile.

It is the most lightweight platform to use. It is very flexible. It is not very difficult to manage, configure, and deal with. That is a plus point.

Migrating people from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 to 8 has been good so far. Irrespective of whether we are doing an in-place upgrade or a full rebuild, most people are able to convert over. There is no problem.

For our use case, it seems to be working well, so I cannot think of what it could do better. I know for our purpose and what we have been using it for, it has been working well. Their support, however, can be better.

I came on board when they bought our company. At the time, I was using CentOS. From what I know, they have been only using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I started using it from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7. It has been about 13 years.

It seems stable, but developers might have a different response. When you have a problem with a Windows server, you typically reboot it, but you do not have to reboot a Linux server to get it to work better.

It is a scalable platform.

It is pretty good. It varies based on the support person that you get. They might understand what you are talking about right away or not.

For one of the cases that I opened, I laid out every single detail possible. The first thing they said was that it was not that. It was something else. They kept going back and forth with different support teams on the same ticket. Finally, it clicked with somebody and they figured out what caused the issue. Somehow an RPM of a different version was installed on one server versus another one, and no one caught that. Some people were going down the wrong path saying it was networking and not some sort of binary that was installed which changed something. They went back and forth with different troubleshooting paths. Eventually, someone saw and understood what I meant.

Positive

We have always been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux at our workplace.

Deployment for our builds is typically PXE. I do not have insights into that because the build is built and configured by another team. I deploy and provide the server for the development team. I understand how Kickstart and other things work, but I do not install and configure it. It seems relatively easy. From what I have done in the past, it does not seem that difficult.

I am not aware of taking any external help for deployment.

The biggest ROI is in terms of consistency. We know how it works which makes going forward a lot easier.

We are coming from CentOS, so technically, our total cost of ownership has gone up, but it is still cheaper than Windows for a database server and things like that.

I was not a part of the evaluation. I came on board and began working with what was there.

In terms of security features, we do not use anything too advanced other than what is out of the box. We do not manage the compliance piece and things like that. There is a different group that manages that piece.

Overall, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a nine out of ten.

We use Red Hat for everything or we have a Red Hat derivative.

We use it on-prem and on the cloud. We use it in a hybrid cloud environment. We see it everywhere. We have a more consistent view. We do not have the same churn that we have with other operating systems. The longevity of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is pretty cool.

We see it being used a lot for containerization projects. A lot of the things that I am involved in involve Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It is a great experience. It is something that we know we can come into and have a good outcome. It is very reliable.

They are at the forefront in terms of built-in security features. I have seen a lot of things that they are doing. We would like to see more of that because security is something that is impacting everyone. 

The portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux is great for keeping our organization agile. It is consistent. When I build an image with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I know what is in it. I know it is trusted. I do not have the same churn that I would have with others. The way they support it and the way they communicate are well-known.

It is the number one Linux operating system that we've run in to, and the way it does things is the way I prefer. I do not know if it is because they did it first, or they just read my mind.

The number one feature we like is that it is a very reliable platform. It is a very consistent platform. There is very little that we cannot do with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and there is very little that we worry about when we are running a Red Hat distribution.

Red Hat started as a very open and outwardly focused release, but recently, some of the changes that were made have affected that reputation. From the standpoint of what they can add to the product, the product is pretty stable. 

They continue to push the ecosystem forward, but as a consumer, what was most important for me was the reputation of openness that Red Hat has fostered. I would like that back. I wish they did not care about CentOS and things like that. I have seen my customers push away from Red Hat as a result of that perception, which is weird because it does not change anything. I wish they would value that. Because of new owners too, the perception has changed suddenly.

I started with Red Hat before Enterprise Linux. I started in the nineties when Red Hat first went on floppy disks. They had a bunch of floppy disks. That was my first release, and then they started doing it via CD-ROMs. The first Red Hat Enterprise Linux release that I used was 2 or 2.1 in early 2000. I remember the Red Hat person coming to where I was working at the time and saying that they are going to start this enterprise distribution. We were really skeptical. We were like, "We have Red Hat. We love Red Hat. Why are you messing with a good thing?" It is kind of funny.

It is stable.

It is scalable.

It has always been solid. It is getting a little worse than it was before. When you get to the right people, you always get amazing support. It is just a bit harder to get to the right people. I would rate their support a ten out of ten. I love it when we get there.

Positive

It has been very long since I started working with these types of solutions. I have used them all.

We use it in the cloud. We use it on-prem. We use it in a hybrid situation. We use all cloud providers.

Its deployment has always been simple.

I am a consultant and integrator.

For us, our ROI is the predictability of Red Hat. We know what is coming. It is well-communicated. We could see the upstreams. We know how it is supported. We know how they communicate about CVEs and things like that. We know how to iterate the ecosystems. We know how to deal with RPMs. Very rarely, you are like, "This is brand new." It always usually works into a construct. There is always a utility that you can use to wrap complex things, such as SELinux or containers. There is always something.

We have done bake-offs before with the big three that everybody talks about. There is Red Hat. There is SUSE, and there is Ubuntu. Personally, I am not a fan of Ubuntu. I do not run a desktop, which is probably why. The ones that I run into all the time are SUSE or Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

If I were not going with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would go with a Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone. In business, I would always use Red Hat. Personally, I would use CentOS just because I prefer the way Red Hat organizes everything, so it has always been Red Hat or a Red Hat clone.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten. I love it.

We are a brokerage firm. We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for trading purposes. We develop our applications on it.

By implementing Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we wanted a stable server and OS.

There is an in-built feature for shell scripting, so we can automate things that have to run on time in production. We created a script for the setup and configuration of certain things, such as disabling the firewall, network manager, and other things.

I am able to handle some of the daily issues automatically by using batch scripting and cron scheduler. I have also been able to debug some of the issues with the help of logs.

It is open source. We can customize it as per our requirements. We can change or optimize it as per our requirements.

Their support needs improvement. It should be faster for priority tickets.

Some of the tools can be improved and made user-friendly. The OpenStack and OpenShift tools can be better.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for almost three years.

It is stable. I would rate it a 9 out of 10 for stability.

It is scalable. I would rate it a 9 out of 10 for scalability.

We have about 100 servers, and we have about four people working in the IT department.

Their support needs to improve. If we create a priority ticket for Red Hat, they revert within four hours. They should respond within half an hour so that the issue can be resolved as soon as possible in the real or live environment, and the company has less downtime.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Windows operating systems.

Upgrades and migrations are easy with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We are currently working on upgrades from RHEL 7 to RHEL 9.

We use open source. We only have a subscription for support.

For security purposes, we use the SSH key algorithm, MD5, and SHA256. We have set up a firewall in our network, and all servers are password-based. We also block some common ports that are open when we install the OS. We also have monitoring tools to ensure uptime.

Overall, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a 9 out of 10.

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux across different versions, from six to nine, to run various applications. Our main area of focus involves using Satellite support to manage and patch both the Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS and specific applications like OpenShift and other products supported by Red Hat. We have multiple environments, including Azure, AWS, and a standalone eXs host. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's patching process needs improvement, particularly in achieving consistency. Currently, when you patch, you might not have control over the timing, leading to different software packages ending up at different patch levels. This lack of consistency can make it challenging to manage and control the various components effectively. My background is in IBM AIX, so the patching is based on the technology level and the service pack level, so all the related patches stay at the same level.  

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ten years.

I would rate the knowledge base offered by Red Hat as average. I would rate their support as a three out of ten.

Negative

We also use IBM AIX. I prefer AIX, but Red Hat Enterprise Linux is cheaper. However, IBM has real technical support. You can call a 1-800 number and get a technician on the line. That's real technical support. Red Hat requires you to email them and schedule a call. 

Overall, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a five out of 10. 

I don't see Red Hat Enterprise Linux's built-in security features as effectively simplifying risk reduction and compliance. We use AIX, but still, we face a lot of vulnerabilities from Red Hat that need frequent patching, often monthly. This frequent need for updates, along with the rapid changes in Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases, can be frustrating and lead to instability. In the banking industry, where we take vulnerabilities seriously, these frequent releases and lack of stability can be problematic. 

We are an Azure shop that runs middleware applications like Java and JBoss, running on the Azure back end. We have to redeploy everything via ARM templates. Anytime we do an upgrade of the application itself, it's a redeployment. We have custom images that we set up through Azure pipelines. We use Ansible for code changes and server changes.

The solution's stability is great, and patching it with Ansible is very easy.

The solution's licensing sometimes could be a little bit confusing for someone who's not a full-blown system admin and doesn't have a lot of experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It took a while for me to understand the licensing.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for three years.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s built-in security features for simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance are pretty good. My only exposure is just packet management, but packet management gives me everything that I need.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has enabled us to achieve security standards certification. We have to stay on top of things because we work with the Ontario District School Board. There's a big emphasis on keeping everything secure, and the solution has helped us to do that.

Right now, our company is migrating to 8.8, and I think we will stay on 8 for a few years. We're doing everything through the images, and we keep everything updated with Ansible. I don't think we have any plans to use any of the automation tools other than Ansible.

Overall, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux ten out of ten.

All of our application services, application databases, and web services run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Everything is on there.  

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is certainly more secure than AIX, which is what we had. It's also better than Solaris. It has improved from that perspective. We can handle the vulnerabilities better. It's more secure.

Other than that, some of the products that we are using, we are migrating out of very costly license items. For example, we're using Fusion because we wanted to migrate, and then we started using Vision Manager. We did a POC a few years ago. We started using PAM because we wanted an engine in our workflow management system from that perspective. 

We are still exploring a lot of items, but it's been a decent journey. It has helped to set up modern technologies.

We use a lot of Red Hat products. We use Red Hat PAM, Red Hat Session Manager, and the operating system. 

We use the operating system the most because all our servers are on it.

The support is good. Red Hat provides use with a degree of training.

The adoption was slightly slow because the knowledge in the market is slightly less available. It's hard to find resources to actually support the product.

Some kind of training that can upskill the resource into this technology could certainly help.

I started using Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 6 in 2019. We have our own data center.

We used different solutions. We moved from AIX 7.1 to RHEL 6. Then we moved to 7. Now we're going to 8.

We chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux because we wanted to adopt newer technologies and we wanted to secure our systems. Red Hat Enterprise Linux was a good available option. 

It's on-prem right now. The deployment was straightforward. 

I manage the infrastructure team so all of these things are under my purview. 

We did hit some hiccups, but then RHEL's emergency support was available, and we were able to resolve it. 

We have an engineering team that analyzes different products. During the analysis phase, we look for all vulnerabilities.

Once it passes all of those things, it becomes available in our internal protocol. We have different names where it becomes available in our source space to get deployed.

Migrations and upgrades have been straightforward. For example, OpenSSL has different versions that are not supported on RHEL 7, which we have right now. There is a version that comes built-in. 

We faced some issues, but we worked it out with Red Hat. They gave us a patch. 

We're moving to RHEL 8 now. We moved to RHEL 7 last year; we're going to RHEL 8 now. Next year, in 2024, we plan to move to RHEL 8.

We saw a return on investment. It is helping the business. 

The pricing is competitive. It's not low, but it is in the market. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.